A Final Jeopardy! Answer, and Lifespans

The final Jeopardy! answer on tonight's episode of that long-lasting game show series concerned a topic I had no reason to be knowledgeable about: who is buried in England's Westminster Abbey.  It is where British royalty has historically been interred, but there is a place within, called "Poet's Corner", where standouts in the arts, most notably literary, have also been accorded burial spots.  I'm not sure exactly what the wording was in the Jeopardy! answer, but it did include the year of burial as being 1991...and I came up with the correct solution: "Who was Laurence Olivier?"  In case you didn't already know, he is widely acknowledged as being one of the greatest actors of all time...although, I'm sure to my own loss, the only movies I remember seeing him in were Marathon Man and The Boys from Brazil.  Yet in only those two films his performance was dazzling, especially in the former.  Being a dweller of the year 2025 as I write this, I was convinced that Olivier had already passed away...but was a little surprised that he died sometime in 1989, some 36 years ago.  As each of us passes, riding the "now" moment, through our own individual lifespans, we can only perceive the subjective reality of the years we remember being alive through our own experience and realities, depending on others' records and memories of those times preceding our births.  I don't know how long I will remain on Earth, but I'm confident that 36 years after my passing I will in no way be weighing in on the passage of time in that as-yet unknown, but inevitable year.  For each of us individually, as far as our own subjected perception is concerned, there is only one time, and it is now.  The nearly universal biography statistic of lifespan...the birth year, a hyphen, and the year of dying...is one of objective perception from outsiders.  Each of us can play a little at this and see ourselves as our birth years, a hyphen...and nothing, but never with that final year.  We belong to our lifespans, and that will always be real, as it has always been for every biological entity that has ever been.  The big mystery, which religion and philosophy tend to address, is what happens to that personally-experienced "now" at death.  If I say that I am defined for myself as being the "here and now", then not only does that mean that your "here" is by nature different from mine, but also that your "now" is different as well in spite of it seeming the same.  So my "now" doesn't depend on you or others or the so-called objective reality that trudges on ahead through time.  But enough of this metaphysical speculation, time to go get another coffee...

Game of the Week: America Says

 

AMERICA SAYS is a TV game show specifically created for the cable station Game Show Network (on Channel 73 for Gainesville Cox Cable subscribers).  It's been around since 2018 and is hosted by John Michael Higgins.  The premise is simple enough: two four-person teams...not necessarily family like the similar show Family Feud...vie against each other for points and bonus round dollars as they fill in the blanks to phrases posed at-large in surveys taken of Americans for their most common answers.  You can see from the above game, with the contestant in the lower left corner, that "home run", "umpire", and "strike" have already been correctly guessed for those blanks on the puzzle screen...the remaining words are hinted at by the lengths of their blanks.  This is not a deliberately racy show with all kinds of dubious sexual references as is sadly the case with Steve Harvey's Family Feud, which I used to watch in the 1970s when Richard Dawson hosted it but now studiously avoid...I like Harvey and thinks he's a talented comedian, but his show has gone in the wrong direction with its emphasis.  On the other hand, I have yet to figure out the somewhat confusing rules on America Says, especially when it comes to team elimination and bonus rounds.  And like just about every game show out there, they spend too much time trying to establish personal rapport with the often very uninteresting guests by asking questions prompted, no doubt, by the questionnaires they filled out beforehand...groan.  No, I can do without all that: what I like is simply competing against the contestants to see if I can't fill in all the blanks.  Another thing making America Says superior to Family Feud is that the puzzle survey is not of the studio audience, with potentially oddball responses, but rather is more likely to be representative of how people really think.  On the other hand, I do like that Family Feud bonus round more...just let me skip the rest of the show.  When I see America Says with all its surveys about often inane topics, it gives me pause as to why there isn't a news cable channel somewhere out there whose only function is to poll the population with pertinent questions about relevant issues affecting Americans today, without any built-in ideological spin...kind of like a Gallop or Harris Poll Channel.  Such a channel would demand a response from our often intransigent politicians when their votes and policies directly contradict the people's will.  But I get it: fat chance of that ever happening...instead we get partisan, biased news channels with their partisan, biased viewership participating in meaningless surveys...

Game of the Week: Split (Not the Card Game)

When I was 9 years old in the fourth grade back in the first year's existence of Nova Blanche Forman Elementary School in Davie, Florida, the kids in my class were adept at creating different games...usually played by either the boys or girls, but not both.  There was a lot of complex patty-cake hand-clapping gaming among the girls back then while the boys came up with their own diversions...one of these was the peculiar-looking game of Split.  Split was always played outside on the ground (not asphalt or pavement) for obvious reasons: it involved throwing a pencil (or pen or any sharpened stick) down so that it would stick in the dirt.  The two players stand facing each other, initially their legs straight down, and then take turns throwing the pencil into the ground to the left or right of their opponent's feet.  Then the opponent has to stretch out  his nearest foot to touch the embedded pencil, pick it up, and likewise throw it into the ground on his adversary's side.  After a few throws, the game's title becomes apparent as both players are struggling to maintain their balance with their feet increasingly split more and more apart...one player wins when the other either can no longer stand straight or if his throw bounces off the ground instead of sticking in it.  At one time that year (~1965-66) the schoolyard before classes, after them, and during recess would be full of paired-off boys playing this interesting game.  The funny thing is that after that period, I never saw anyone play Split again, and after doing a search on the Internet have failed to remotely find any reference to it, only to a card game with the same name.  Maybe it more commonly goes by a different name.  Have you ever heard of anything like this?

Game of the Week: Bowling

I am hardly an avid bowler...probably has something to do with the fact that I'm not very good at it.  The first time I went to a bowling alley was back in 1968, with my seventh-grade physical education class.  Although I received little instruction on how to play the game, I did learn the arcane method of scoring in bowling.  My first game had me bowl a 33...I believe before those school outings ended I got my score up into the upper 70s.  As an adult I've bowled on a number of occasions around Gainesville and Leesburg, the latter with its shorted-out neon sign "LEESBURG OWL" being the site of my personal high game: 177, back around thirty years ago.  Since 2017 when I suffered some nerve damage interfering with the bending of my right thumb, I haven't tried the sport...who knows, maybe my impediment wouldn't affect my game.  Easily the most annoying thing about bowling is the requirement to rent out old shoes that others have worn...and worn...and worn.  This must be the only situation in life where you actually shell out money in order to put on strange, smelly used shoes.  Regarding the actual aiming and release of the ball, I know that the better bowlers put a good spin on it and make it follow a curved path, hitting the head pin at an angle and causing a cascade of falling pins that often leads to strikes...but I've only been slightly successful with my own efforts.  Instead, although I do spin the bowl a little my focus is aiming it at the pins...with predictably mixed results.  Oh well, although I have seen others bowl by themselves, for me it's a social activity that I have shared with classmates, friends, and family... and that has made it worthwhile, crappy shoes and all...

Game of the Week: War (Cards)

 

When I was growing up, we had our family games...one of them was a card game we called "Battle"...later on I found out that, to the world in general, it was "War".  Not a game of skill, each side is dealt out of the 52-card deck until it's spent...then they each put out a card from top of their own pile and the largest value wins all cards (Ace is high card), to be placed face up on their discard pile. The game is played until one side runs out of cards. If the two cards placed are the same, then a "war" (or battle in our version) ensues, with each player laying three of their cards face down and placing the next one face up...the highest value wins all the cards in play.  War can go on and on and on...in one game as a kid I recorded 93 battles.  Melissa and I were playing it a few days ago and it looked headed the same way...finally we agreed to play 15 more minutes and whoever had the most cards at that point won (it was Melissa, naturally).  I've read that some dude said that War wasn't really a game since it involved no decision-making on the part of the player.  But all the games I watch on TV, no matter which sport, ARE games as well with me playing no volitional role (other than to switch the channel)...I'm just playing the vicarious role of the spectator.  Still, I think the next time I pull out the card deck we'll be playing Rummy instead (which Melissa also usually wins)... 

Game of the Week: The Lottery

Whenever I think of the lottery, I think of three things: Shirley Jackson's short horror story with that title, the All in the Family episode when Edith buys what turns out to be the winning lottery ticket for her next-door neighbor Louise, and the Florida Lottery, begun in 1988 after being approved by a wide margin in the 1986 elections.  After my state's fledgling lottery instituted the Lotto with its promise of millions to the winner(s) each week, I would play along and occasionally put down a dollar for a ticket...I always used the same six numbers.  But never more than a buck at a time, nor with any real expectation of winning...it was more of a social "activity" I did with my family back then.  Not long thereafter, I lost interest and it's been many years since I ever played it.  But although the Florida Lottery has the altruistic aim of funding my state's public education system from its proceeds, it is still gambling and as such has infected many with its promises of easy money.  I don't know whether there is a gene that makes one susceptible to becoming a compulsive gambler, but sadly there was one in my family as I grew up and I quickly learned my lesson about gambling's downside.  One of the first Twilight Zone episodes I ever saw, The Fever, has a man reluctantly visiting Las Vegas with his wife.  Feeling morally superior to the "vice" of gambling he sees everywhere, he nevertheless succumbs to the temptation of the slot machine when coins pour out from it the first time he plays.  From that moment onward he is hooked...continually losing at that machine but afraid to leave it for fear that the next player would win "his" jackpot.  That's how I think a lot of habitual lottery players see their weekly ventures...the one week they skip playing just might be the week their numbers come in, and wouldn't that be tragic if they missed out.  When I'm at a convenience store or Publix at the service counter and someone in front of me in line lays down a large stash of dough on lottery tickets, part of me wants to wheel that person around and shout sense into them.  But no, it's all going for education, right?

Game of the Week: Croquet

A few days ago I read Agatha Christie's first mystery novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles, from 1921.  Set in a rural English estate, a passing reference is made to a croquet game...bringing to my mind a flood of memories of playing it with my family during my childhood in the 1960s.  After reading up on it, I discovered that there are different versions of croquet...including one with flamingos for mallets, hedgehogs for balls, and living card-men for wickets, if you happen to be a Lewis Carroll fan.  But here in America, we seem to have agreed on one form: the nine-wicket game.  Each player starts off in front of the "home" stake with their own mallet and colored wooden ball, the goal being to make a complete circuit of the course by putting the ball through each wicket (a thick rectangular wire stuck into the ground) in the right sequence and direction while hitting the stakes at the ends of the course before anyone else.  I remember getting pretty good at it...and then we all sadly seemed to outgrow croquet.  But I'd like to revive interest in it, at least at my home.  The only problem is that with this heavy rain we've been having and almost unbearable humidity, the ground in my backyard is thoroughly saturated with water and is sloshy to walk through.  It's bad enough to try mowing the lawn through it...at least during my recovery I'm happy to let others tackle that...but in this mushy state it is impossible to attempt a croquet game.  Still, I entertain hopes for a dryer future and plan on obtaining a croquet set soon...

Game of the Week: Tennis

I'm currently watching the first round of the U.S. Open tennis tournament on ESPN.  Tennis has always seemed much easier on television than it really is to play.  I learned to play tennis in my late teens in the early-to-mid 1970s and never played or practiced enough to achieve a reasonable level of competency in it.  I remember running mile after mile in after-school track practice in high school and then later going out to a nearby tennis court with my sister and, after practicing our serves a little, just volleying the ball back and forth to get better with our forehand and backhand swings...no matter how tiring the running had been just an hour or so earlier.  And simply hitting the ball back and forth over the net...no one keeping score...has always been how I've enjoyed "playing tennis".  Yet I remember taking an introductory tennis course at college in the summer of 1975 to fulfill some of my physical education requirements (back when colleges had physical education requirements).  I remember my teacher, who seemed like he thought he was a real cool badass dude, sneering at me with disgust as I "aced" my serving exam by meekly placing each one squarely in the correct place...with absolutely no force or spin on the ball.  Yet I knew how to get an "A" and got it...not that I was any better in it afterwards.  No, after a humiliating game in 1979 I played with a college friend from Brazil in which he thoroughly demolished me and thought no one could play that badly, I put away my racket and would subsequently use tennis balls to play fetch and keep-away with my dogs.  Yet I do enjoy watching tennis on television...with one exception. For some inexplicable reason (maybe they think they're intimidating their opponent), certain professional women players from Eastern Europe (like Maria Sharapova, Victoria Azarenka, and Simona Halep) have this extremely annoying habit of giving loud voice to their exhalations each time they hit the ball, resulting in a horrible sounding sequence of grunts and chirps with each volley. It's gotten so that not only to I automatically root against these players, but I also mute the sound to avoid hearing that crap.  Oh well, maybe some people think what they do is cool...you never know what makes someone think something's cool.  And in the late 1970s when I was making the transition from adolescence to adulthood, there were two activities that people overwhelmingly (but not me) thought were cool: disco dancing and tennis.  They've both declined over the years as participatory activities, but I've always enjoyed watching a good tennis match...and I think I'd better leave my opinion on disco unsaid...    

Game of the Week: Chess

When I was a kid we often played checkers, but never chess.  Chess to me was always this kind of advanced game that tested the players' intelligence.  In high school some of my classmates would spend their lunch hour and breaks playing chess with each other, but other than just learning enough of the rules to be able to follow it at a primitive level, I steered clear of the game.  Still, I have a few observations about it.  I'm always impressed when a game is going on and one of the players moves a piece and says something like "checkmate in 5 moves".  To me, each turn in chess is like a brand-new game: you may think that you have an intricate strategy at one time, but then your opponent moves their piece and everything is upset, and you have to start all over with your strategy the next move.  I'm very impressed by those who have learned to play the game at a level of competency, but I also know that success in chess doesn't necessarily mean you're smart in everything...just in playing chess.  When I turned 60 a few years back, I qualified to become a member of the local seniors recreation center just down the road, a mile from my home.  But even knowing that every Wednesday they had a chess group and were open to beginners, I have never taken advantage of the opportunity to go there and see what happens.  But who knows, once this Covid crap dies down I may just try it out...

Game of the Week: Wordscapes

 

Wordscapes is one of a number of puzzle apps users can play on their smartphone...Melissa installed it first on her phone and I followed suit a few weeks later.  As you can see from the picture, for each game they provide either 6 or 7 scrambled letters and it's my task to fill in the accompanying crossword squares to form real words.  It's possible through a number of games to build up credit that I can use to get hints if I get stalled on a puzzle...otherwise I would have to pay them money to get the same hint.  Yes, these games usually have a premium version that eliminates all ads.  Each weekend Wordscapes stages a tournament that the user can play against 99 others...the field gets selected by when the players start playing.  Although I dig the competitive spirit of the tourney, I also just like to pick up my phone and play a few rounds.  If you like Jumble then maybe this one's for you, too...

Game of the Week: Scrabble

Scrabble is one of the board games in my house...and I also played it way down yonder in Hollywood when I was growing up.  My mother, sister, and I would sit there with our letter tiles, trying to figure words that would optimize the points scored, with strategies such as creating two words at once and/or placing the tiles on special squares on the board that doubles or triples the letter, or squares doubling or tripling the entire word's value.  I believe that I've grown pretty good at Scrabble, but I do have one pet peeve about the game.  My mom had a penchant for coming up with words that neither Anita nor I had ever heard of, and for the most part they were indeed credible words after consulting the dictionary.  I remember back in the 1990s here in Gainesville the Books-a-Million store would hold Scrabble games once a week, with the winners' names published in the Gainesville Sun...but that would involve interfering either with my sleep or working hours, so I never participated.  There is to me an adequate mixture of luck and skill in this game, for players cannot tell in advance which letters they are picking up from the table top...but sometimes making the best of what appears to be an impossible situation is more enjoyable than making a long word...

Game of the Week...Wheel of Fortune

Wheel of Fortune has become a deeply established fixture in American culture, with its co-hosts Pat Sajak and Vanna White going back many decades.  I usually see it on Saturday evenings at 7 on my local Channel 4 station, just preceding the Jeopardy! broadcast.  The game show's premise is for contestants (three of them) to solve the on-screen mystery word puzzle...hinted at by its topic...by alternately guessing letters and spinning the wheel, which usually lands on a dollar amount for each time the letter appears in the solution...but sometimes also landing on "bankrupt" or "lose a turn".  At the end of the show, which halfway through has a puzzle bonus game awarding expenses-paid travel to some exotic location, the player with the most accumulated winnings goes on to the final bonus round, where if they solve the usually very difficult puzzle they win lots more money...or a new car.  Although I prefer Jeopardy! to Wheel of Fortune, I have always enjoyed Sajak's sly wit and the way he has fun, often at his contestants' expense.  Back in 1989-90 he had his own late night TV talk show...which I liked...but apparently few others did and it was soon canceled.  I like the way that contestants who are unlucky with the wheel's spin still have chances to win a lot of money on special challenge games in the show, and that no one leaves with less than $1000 even if they never won a round.  There's a kind of corny, old-fashioned, relaxed and friendly spirit permeating this series, a real feel-good kind of vicarious experience.  And I get a kick out of solving the puzzles before someone else does... 

Game(s) of the Week: Bombardment and Prisonball

To discuss my old elementary school recess games of bombardment and prison ball, both played on a full-court outdoor asphalt basketball court with those red inflatable bouncy balls and two bowling pins and involving the entire class at once, I read back on this blog and discovered I had already written an article covering it all...so with the author's (my) permission, I have copied that August, 2007 piece and pasted it below:

When I was going to elementary school from the fourth through sixth grades, we had our customary recess/physical education period. And one of the games we used to play was Bombardment. This game used the typical outside, asphalt-surfaced, full basketball court, but instead of using the baskets, a bowling pin was placed underneath each basket on opposite ends of the court. The class was divided into two sides, each side relegated to one half of the court. The object of the game was to knock down the opposing team’s pin using those red, lightweight basketball-sized balls (usually with about four or five used per game) that were commonly used in elementary schools. In the process of the game, if someone got hit by a ball thrown by the other side before it bounced, they’d be out of the game (until the next game started). Unless they caught the ball, in which the opponent who threw it would be out of the game. So, as a game of Bombardment went on, fewer and fewer players would be actively involved, while more and more would be off the court. While “out” of the game, students would often make up their own games, talk with each other, or play on the monkey bars nearby. Apparently, to the faculty involved in overseeing this, that meant too much student freedom and not enough control, so a new game was later devised and called Prisonball. It was exactly the same as Bombardment, except that when you were “out”, instead of leaving the game, you had to stand in a small square inset on the opponent’s end of the court and wait for a ball to come to you (which rarely happened). If you were lucky and got hold of a ball, you then had to hit one of the opposing players with it to be “redeemed” and go back to your end to play. Can you guess what happened? As the game wore on, more and more players became “prisoners” and were cramped together, sometimes resembling “Black Hole of Calcutta” conditions, in the respective “prison” squares (with the more aggressive students jostling with others for positions on the outside). But this misery for the students was joy for the faculty, who once again had the students all under their thumbs. And it got to be that, at the beginning of a game, a teacher would loudly proclaim that it was to be Prisonball, not Bombardment. So one of my favorite games at school quickly turned into my most hated game there. Those responsible for this could control my participation, but they couldn’t control the contempt I felt for them then. It just made me, in the long run, less trusting of any school authority and more likely to go down my own paths, for better or for worse.

Game of the Week: Cash Cab

 

Cash Cab is a TV game show, currently shown on Bravo, originally aired on the Discovery Channel.  The host, Ben Bailey, drives his taxi through the streets of New York...usually Manhattan...just like any other cab until the passengers step in and then the lights start flashing above and recognition dawns upon them: the game is on!  Each destination is different, of course, but the rules are the same.  It's a trivia game and the passengers have three strikes (missed answers) before they are ejected from the cab.  Each correctly answered question awards them more cash and if they get to the end still in the game, Ben gives them the chance to go double-or-nothing with a final video quiz.  They can also call someone on their cell for help or do street-side or social media "shout-outs".  Having visited Manhattan in 2010, I enjoy the different routes and street photography showing the throng and surrounding buildings.  I also like the fact that although the contestants tend to be tourists or residents, they don't have to pass auditions to get in on the action as is the case with other game shows.  Cash Cab isn't always filmed in New York, but the overwhelming majority of episodes are.  Ben Bailey is a great host and I admire that fact that he can deftly pilot his taxi through heavy New York traffic without missing a beat with his questions and the guests.  And if you want to see diversity with the contestants on many different levels, you won't do any better than this series...   

Game of the Week: Minesweeper

 

For years Minesweeper was an embedded game in every desktop or laptop computer, usually along with Solitaire representing the "free" games.  How many of us have gotten sucked into playing this game over and over again when we instead should have been tending to what we were SUPPOSED to do on the computer...or, better, "just say no" and switch off the contraption?  The premise of Minesweeper, which can be played on different-sized game grids with variable difficulty, involves filling up the squares with "steps"...if a number appears, you're safe, but if you just stepped on a mine, then "game over".  Each number indicates exactly how many mines surround it vertically, horizontally or diagnally...so the highest number theoretically would be "8"...if such a "safe" square has no surrounding mines, the game automatically compensates for it so that you are always presented with choices.  There is some strategy and skill to Minesweeper, but luck sometimes is involved whenever no clear safe move is available and you just have to make your best guess.  The program usually keeps account of how quickly you successfully get through a game...I always got a kick out of playing it.  It also makes me feel a bit old in that there is probably an increasing number of people on this planet who have never heard of Minesweeper, much less having experienced playing it since computers nowadays tend not to include it in their packages...

Game of the Week: Parcheesi

 

Parcheesi is an old board game I used to play often with my family when I was growing up...it's dubbed a "Backgammon game of India".  From two to four players can participate, each one using four pieces...the pictured game has two players.  The pieces all start in the assigned circular "nest" and can only start out on the board's pathway after a dice roll of five.  Players can move their pieces according to their dice rolls, splitting them up according to the numbers...say you roll a "6" and "3"...then you can move one piece 6 spaces and another 3...or choose to move one of your pieces "9".  As in the mythical Jumanji, doubles gets an extra turn.  If you land on a white space occupied by an opponent's piece, you send it back to their "nest" and they must start over with it.  Each piece must make its way all around the board and then go up the red pathway to the center of the board, called "home".  The first player to get all their pieces "home" wins the game.  Part of the strategy of Parcheesi I liked was the "blockade", whereby two of one's pieces placed in the same space can prevent others from passing it...but I noticed that some of my family members back then tended to get angry if a blockade lasted "too long".  At this time I don't own a Parcheesi game, but am considering picking one up.  It's a mix of strategy and luck, so winning means something but only to a limited degree.  I wonder how Trump would react to playing it...I imagine the first time he lost he'd complain that it was all "rigged"...

Game of the Week: Ice Hockey

 

Ice hockey is not only a game I've never played...I've never even ice-skated: heck, I've never roller-skated to any degree, for that matter.  This shouldn't be surprising in that I've been a Florida resident since before I was one and water tends not to freeze outdoors in this neck of the woods, so unlike with other sports we never played ice hockey in school or as a "sandlot" sport.  And there's obviously no ice hockey presence in Florida athletics, either...but in the National Hockey League we have the defending champs Tampa Bay Lightning and the Florida Panthers for the Miami area. Over the decades I have kept up with hockey, both in the newspaper by keeping up with the National Hockey League standings and on television by occasionally watching games...especially during the Stanley Cup championship playoffs as they are currently taking place. And now it's down to the final series between defending champs Tampa Bay and the resurgent Montreal Canadiens to determine this year's league title. Hockey has always been difficult for me to follow...I think I have a better grasp on the sport, though, now that I understand its off-side rule where the attacking team has to have the remaining players behind the blue line on its offensive side before they can advance the puck.  I'm still unsure about icing, though, which sometimes seems to be more of a judgment call of the officials.  It's also amazing that any goals ever get scored, what with the goalie sitting there covering the net with all his protective gear ballooning out...I wonder if there's a size limit on goalies, otherwise you could just hire a pro wrestler of Man Mountain Mike's girth and get shutouts every game...I think I remember an insurance commercial where a bear played the goalie! I also think it's funny about the numerous fights that take place during the course of a game...and how, unlike in basketball, football, or baseball, the participants...faces often bloodied...usually don't seem too emotionally involved in it all, as if it's just a regular part of the sport.  No, there are many aspects of hockey that confuse me, but most of all my problem is keeping up with where the puck is at any given moment... 

Game of the Week: Jigsaw Puzzles

I've been doing jigsaw puzzles from very early in my life and have never tired of it, my only limitation being having a large enough flat surface to lay out the pieces and put them together, a surface that doesn't need to serve any other function as I come and go from time to time to work on the puzzle.  I've tended of late to post photos of various puzzles I've finished...for this article I decided to go to the other end of the process...the beginning...and picture the scattered, unorganized pieces before the fun begins, and then take one of a puzzle in progress.  A jigsaw puzzle is a game in which score isn't kept and can either be done individually or communally, the latter with the implicit understanding that anyone passing by a puzzle-in-progress can work on it.  At the start it's a bit tedious separating and turning up all the pieces...while in this stage I almost always separate out the end pieces as well as those with similar patterns or colors.  When selecting a puzzle from a store I'm careful to avoid the ones with two much unmarked uniformity to the picture, such as one with a large section of cloudless sky. It's been a while since I last did a jigsaw puzzle...this one I did here last week was a lot of fun!

Game of the Week: Crossword Puzzles

 

Being someone who's typically pretty good at guessing the correct Jeopardy! answers questions, along with possessing a generous amount of stored-up trivia and knowledge of the English language, I should be better at doing crossword puzzles than I am...but I'm usually relegated to doing the easy ones, such as with the above photo.  My parents were whizzes at them, however, and I remember being impressed by the very difficult diagramless puzzles they would do.  As for myself, unless it's a book that has "easy" in its title or a Monday or Tuesday newspaper puzzle (they get harder as the week progresses), I know my limitations and steer clear of the more challenging crosswords. It's not exactly my favorite kind of puzzle you work out on paper: I greatly prefer Kakuro, Jumble, Hidato, Cryptograms, and Sudoku.  Of course, with a smartphone and that handy-dandy Google search engine, I can fudge a little on the game and conveniently help myself if a clue isn't bringing to mind the correct combo of letters in the designated length of row or column.  I've tried the more difficult crossword puzzles from time to time, but there's one type I refuse to do: puzzles in which some letters can only be accessed from one clue...you absolutely must be able to work on any unknown space from both directions or it isn't a legitimate crossword puzzle! 

Game of the Week: Miniature Golf

 

Recently Melissa and I went back to an old haunt of ours: Pirate's Cove miniature golf course in Ormond Beach on A1A, where we would play along with our two children Will and Rebecca.  Having recently become an "expert" on golf by dint of sitting back on my couch and watching the pros play on CBS, I thought I had it within me to try my hand at the miniature version while on vacation.  The place we went to was great, with two separate courses of 18 holes each...we opted for the easier one.  While royally screwing up on a few holes, for the most part I kept up with "par", but we just enjoyed playing the elaborately-created, imaginative holes, each one markedly different from the previous with special obstacles, shapes, and sloping.  Since this particular attraction was about pirates, there were loudspeakers throughout the course pushing stories with that theme as well as signs discussing famous pirates in history.  In miniature golf it's all putting and no driving, so you don't need that kind of athletic training and back and arm strength the regular sport demands.  Still, on our outing we did walk up and down a lot of steps...the above photo is from the top of the course looking down.  I think the Gainesville area still has one or two miniature golf courses...maybe we'll try them out, although I don't think I'll be tackling full-blown golf anytime soon...